Linked courtesy of NASCIO's architecture news briefs, this govexec.com article says the just released White House budget included estimates of the savings achieved by data consolidation across the federal government.

According to this story at FCW.com, market research firm Input says that the state and local outsourcing market will grow, climbing to about $20 billion in 2011 from about $12 billion in 2006. Programs like Medicaid will squeeze state budgets, prompting the initiatives.

Writing in today's USA Today, business columnist Kevin Maney suggests, based on his conversation with FCC Chairman Martin, that the agency could issue another landmark 'Carterphone' decision, this time targeting cable set top boxes and cell phones.

Speaking at the just-concluded NASTD southern region winter meeting, the Louisiana CIO said a couple of things of interest. Rizwan Ahmed noted that 70 percent of the knowledge workers in his state would be eligible to retire in only five years. It fits a pattern Government Technology has identified. Secondly, pay scale and promotions are linked directly. Some people, while skilled, are not interested in management responsibility, which creates a problem for Louisiana. Ahmed wants to address that issue with new program to identify leaders in civil service.

In order to meet a deadline for new book he's authoring, Nicholas Carr is serializing his famous Harvard Business Review article, "IT Doesn't Matter," on Rough Type. I'm not sure where the series will end, but part four is here. There are internal links on his web log so that readers can navigate from beginning to end.

GovernmentVAR, a web site devoted to technology integrators and value-added providers, recently published some spending and trends information that I found interesting. Its State of the States article also quotes a number of state government CIOs in an effort to provide a heads up on the opportunities available to the private sector.

The spending forecast looks good for telecommunications and public safety, two areas where NASTD members are active:

Research firm Input
predicts that IT spending in state and local government will reach more
than $60 billion in 2008 and about $73 billion in 2011. Of that, $50
billion will be contracted to the private sector in 2008, $62 billion
in 2011.

Two areas that
will carry significant opportunity for the channel are public safety,
which Input predicts will grow 12 percent to $3.4 billion in the next
five years, and health care, which is expected to grow 10 percent in
that same time frame, from $7.6 billion to $12.2 billion.

The most
significant sector growth will happen in telecommunications (from 19
percent of the budget in 2006 to 23 percent in 2011) and services (from
23 percent in 2006 to 30 percent in 2011). Software products will stay
at about 9 percent of the total IT budget, while computer hardware is
expected to drop from 16 percent to 14 percent.